Command and Conquer 4: Ascension
by Bembe
Summary: An alternate version of the C&C4 story, starting in 2058, 6 years after the end of Kane's Wrath, picking up the threads of plot and backstory set up in Tiberian Dawn and Sun and taking them to a different conclusion than Tiberian Twilight.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

10th of May, 2058

GDSS Global Command Station 1 – _Linden_

The room was a round, plush space, lacquered oak panels disguising the smooth steel of the space station. Everything in it, from the grey-blue carpet on the floor, to the curved wood table that arched along above it, was perfectly measured and weighed to give the impression that the chamber was just like any other conference room that would have existed back on Earth.

This chamber was not, however, just like its historical counterparts.

The figures that sat around the table, obscured in the shadows cast by the bright, clinical pale blue light in the centre of the ceiling, were among the most powerful people on, or above, the planet.

The door to the chamber swung smoothly and silently inward, and a man in a dark blue business suit strolled in, briskly but calmly making his way to the empty seat opposite the door. His hair was dark and straight, closely cropped, and he had the sort of face that seemed neither young nor old, wrinkle free yet aged somehow, with piercing, cold blue eyes.

'Mister Director,' a dark man with a head of thinning silver hair muttered.

The Director nodded his acknowledgement as he settled into his chair.

'Meeting is now open,' announced the pale, thin man to the director's right. 'Treasurer, would you please summarise the monthly financial report?'

'Thank you, Secretary.' The Treasurer, a balding man with substantial paunch, heaved himself forward in his chair.

'There have been some temporary fluctuations in value, due to continuing raids by subversive elements in the local populations on harvesting operations in Eastern Europe, but the mark is currently steady at a value of 0.49 to a kilo. Our global harvesting operations this month have drawn in over three million tonnes of raw materials. That equates to one point four seven million marks in the Treasury this month. Relevant regional allocation figures are attached to your copies of the report.' He thumbed the corner of a digital page on the tablet screen that lay in front of him. 'I won't go through them now, but suffice it to say that the budget is thoroughly in surplus, due to a reduction in unnecessary spending in areas deemed... lost causes.'

'That's wonderful.' a voice spoke out from the gloom. 'So what do you suggest we do with these additional resources, then?'

The Secretary cleared his throat.

The man who had spoken was swallowed back up by the shadows.

'Thank you, Treasurer. General Whitley; would you please give us a summary of the military report.'

'Certainly, Mister Secretary.'

General Whitley was a broad shouldered man, with closely cropped black hair, greying slightly at the temples, a clean shaven face, and an immaculately ironed and crisp dark blue uniform. His breast was covered with medals and ribbons, and hawk eyes watched from beneath dark crags of eyebrows, daring anyone to question his right to those honours.

'Executive board,' he nodded, clipping each syllable as if he had only a limited number of words available, and didn't wish to waste a single one of them. 'On average recruitment has gone down three percent across the board. I suggest additional promotional campaigns to encourage applications from the population. Martial law has been imposed in zones four, nine, ten and eleven in response to rioting and suspected Nod terrorist cells. Counter-insurgency task-forces have been set up in multiple sectors and are investigating several civilian trading networks with suspected ties to the Brotherhood.'

'Thank you, General Whitely,' the Secretary said. 'Would Professor Renald like to begin?'

'Thank you, Secretary.' Professor Renald, a tall, softly spoken, sprightly English man, with light brown, shaggy hair and glasses that sat askew on his prominent nose, stood up from his seat with a lurch, picking up a pile of black plastic dossiers that sat beside him.

He placed one in front of each member of the executive board, who looked at the nondescript folders with disinterest.

'Thank you, Secretary,' he said again. 'Now, as you know, our planet is in grave danger. This is hardly news to any of you, I'm sure; however, we may all be in much greater danger than we think. We stand on the edge of a precipice, and we need to take action now, or we may very well tumble into the abyss.'

'I am talking, of course, about Tiberium. It has shown major adaptive capabilities in the past, going through several evolutionary changes, most notably in response to our reclamation programs after the Firestorm Crisis, shifting from a runner based, material-leeching, form to its current assimilative proton lattice form, and rendering our atmospheric cleanup program ineffective. This new form proved resistant to traditional reclamation methods as it propagated not through mutation of native flora and the release of preparative gases but through direct absorption and assimilation of matter. We soon discovered and exploited this new strain's weakness to sonic technology. However, I have been observing several sites with extreme levels of Tiberium concentration and it appears that the leeching process is not proceeding at a steady rate, as it has previously been suggested, but is in fact accelerating.'

Something in the atmosphere of the room shifted. Not a person had moved, and yet tension suddenly filled the conference chamber.

Professor Renald stroked an icon on his tablet screen, and a holographic globe appeared in the centre of the room, continents and landmasses outlined in blue.

'This is our Earth in 2049, after the end of the Third Tiberium War.' Professor Renald touched another icon, and bright green marks appeared on the sphere, covering the centres of Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America like great bruises on the Earth.

'This map shows the spread of Tiberium since then.'

The green marks shifted, smearing across the map, filling whole continents, and spreading across several oceans.

'This is our Earth today,' Professor Renald muttered. 'As you can see, there are several Tiberium "hotspots", where Tiberium poisoning has reached critical levels, in central Europe, Australia, central North America and Africa.' Circles appeared on the map, highlighting these areas. Renald touched another icon, and a close-up appeared next to the globe, showing a cracked and broken expanse of dark green crystal, lit by an unearthly emerald light. The dark and tortured sky was lit by flashes of blue and white as ion-fuelled lightning arced across the grim scene. Dominating the scene was a gigantic monolith of Tiberium, imposing and ominous. A scale to the side of the image marked it as being over a kilometre high.

'Is… is this some kind of forecast, or prediction or something?' asked a man with an American accent from somewhere in the shadows.

'This video was taken in Central-Western America three days ago. While the border zones still bear a marked resemblance to the glacier dominated landscapes of ten years ago, at the heart of these "hotspots" Tiberium structures have formed that are over three kilometres high, and all over the planet these structures are becoming more and more regular as lances of Tiberium proliferate under the crust, spreading through our few remaining Blue Zones, similar to the runners that characterised the original strains of Tiberium, but on a much larger scale.

'It appears obvious that Tiberium has entered another rapid evolutionary period, and it is my belief that unless immediate action is taken it will render our planet uninhabitable in a matter of years.'

A staggered silence filled the room.

Somebody cleared their throat.

'How… how long do you predict we have before this happens?' a woman's voice spoke.

'At the moment we're unsure, but projections place an absolute final date at around 2068, possibly much sooner.'

'What do you suggest we do about this acceleration in Tiberium growth?'

'This is, molecularly at least, a very similar strain to the current form, so sonics should still have an effect. However, even if the entire annual GDI budget was reassigned to reclamation, the rate of Tiberium growth would still overtake the rate of clearing, by about 23% each year.'

'So do you have any solution, or are you just here to make alarmist declarations?' the dark man spoke up finally.

'As you can see on the map Antarctica is still relatively Tiberium free, as is the 'Blue Circle' around the North Atlantic Ocean. I believe that full scale redistribution of population from all threatened areas to these zones is the only way to ensure the immediate survival of the human race. Beyond that…' Professor Renald shrugged. 'Secure underground bunkers? A widespread sonic projector network? Space colonisation? But I see no clear way forward. Tiberium is about to claim the Earth and it seems that there is no way to stop it.'

A sudden explosion of noise filled the room as the previously reserved councilors leaped out of their seats and began shouting at the top of their lungs.

'This is unprecedented!'

'This is all fear mongering!'

'What the hell would you know?'

'We must persevere!'

'Evacuation is completely out of the question!'

'It's our only hope!'

'Isn't there some way to reverse the spread of Tiberium? You're the scientist here!'

'Didn't you listen to the Professor?'

'We need the Tacitus.'

Deafening silence filled the room.

The Director cleared his throat.

'Ladies, gentlemen.' He said in his smooth, New Jersey accent. 'The Tacitus is the key to this whole debacle. We need the Tacitus.'

'And how do you propose to acquire it?' piped up a man with slate grey hair and a salt and pepper beard. 'Nod insurgents captured it from us six years ago.'

'Kane captured it,' interjected an aging woman with a mass of curly white hair, earning her a glare from the man.

'Again; how do you propose to acquire it?'

The Director leaned back in his black leather chair and a sly grin split his thin mouth.


	2. Chapter 1

**Act I**

**Chapter 1**

16th of May, 2058

Anchorage, Alaska, B-2

Peter Gale strode from the glass fronted foyer of the apartment complex and into the frosty Alaskan morning, pulling his navy blue coat around him as he quick-stepped it to the monorail station, narrow face pale with cold; dark, and mussed hair damp with dew.

The paved courtyard that separated four of the hexagonal, many-tiered mountains of the apartment complexes was thronging with people today, a wave of humanity flowing through the canals that were the streets of Anchorage.

The monorail station, all gleaming glass and steel, was as packed as the courtyard, a mass of dark blue coats and suits filling the arched expanse. Sixteen promontories of asphalt speared out from across the vast expanse, crowds flowing over them, too, silver, snub-nosed snakes of trains pulling in or out of the busy station. Peter checked his watch, and saw he was just in time for the 8:15.

At that moment, a silver bullet of a train shot past the crowds thronging on the platform, a gleaming streak of metal growling to a halt as it pulled in to the station. Hydraulics hissed as automatic doors swung open, and the dark mass poured through into the train.

There was standing room for around forty in the carriage, but Peter still found himself crowded into a corner, pressed up against a plexiglass window. The doors hissed shut again, and Peter felt the floor shift as the train started up again. Faceless blurs passed by the window, smearing together as the train picked up speed. Bright light lanced through the window as the train shot out of the station, and Peter's eyes took a moment to adjust to the glare.

The train was gliding along a strand of metal that arced along the Alaskan skyline, over more hexagonal mountains of stacked apartments that gave way to rolling hills of patchy green and yellow farmland, a surreal and geometric landscape enclosed by a circle of concrete and metal, one end open to the dark roaring waters of the bay.

Anchorage was, all in all, 150km across, and together with two other cities like it in Blue Zone 2 held one hundred and fifty million people, one sixth of the global GDI controlled population.

In the aftermath of the Third Tiberium War borderlines had been redrawn once again as more and more Blue Zones were claimed by advancing Tiberium. Zone numbers were reassigned, as many of the locations that they had been applied to simply didn't exist anymore. Alaska, Japan (B-3), South Africa (B-4), Greenland (B-6) and Antarctica (B-13) had been redesignated as population centres, and compact cities were built across their reasonably pristine landscapes to hold the millions of citizens who had been and were being driven from their homes in other Blue Zones by Tiberium. The so called 'Blue Circle', a series of Blue Zones ringing the North Atlantic, was redesigned as command zones, with the GDI military leaders and research divisions relocated to these secure and well-defended areas. The remainder of the dwindling zones were mostly left to their own devices and meagre resources, as all other global effort was spent on keeping the main zones free of Tiberium. This left around seven percent of the world under GDI control and (relatively) pristine.

To help maintain the defence of less secure zones from insurgents and Nod splinter cells, a series of sixteen improved orbital defence stations were developed to supplement GDI's already formidable space-based arsenal, with full command and control capabilities, drop pod deployment systems, and anti-missile defences. The network was designed to be invulnerable to the flaws that had brought down the _Philadelphia_ and nearly wiped GDI out forever.

As Peter gazed out the window he looked past the city below him and out towards the dusty, brown landscape beyond and saw the eerie emerald glow on the horizon, giving the sunlight a faint green tint. Approaching rapidly from the distance was the colossal and forbidding profile of Depot 7, glimmering with a sickly, pale green colour in the tainted sunshine.

Anchorage, like the other cities of B-2, was arranged with a maze of mountainous hexagonal apartment blocks spread throughout the centre of the city, interspersed with administration buildings and nature reserves, and surrounded by a band of gigantic tower complexes, where most of the intellectual labour in the Blue Zone went on. The industrial districts lay further out, and were, in turn, ringed by a colossal wall, which encompassed all, preventing any incursion of Tiberium matter with its girdle of sonic emitters.

Stepping from the gleaming bullet of a train and out into the chrome glow of Environmental Control Depot 7, Peter couldn't help but notice the faint smell of rusty metal and ozone in the air; hallmarks of imminent ion storm activity. The others on the relatively small black platform that sat at the entrance of the colossal tower complex seemed to have picked up on it too; they hurried towards the waiting elevators, collars up and faces down. Peter did likewise, trying to escape the uncomfortable sensation of static electricity crawling over his skin.

Peter finished the commute to his section with a short elevator ride to the command floor of the environmental control unit. The main control room was, as always, in a state of finely balanced chaos, technicians running back and forth between control stations, banks of wide screen monitors sprawling from one side of the room to the other, displaying masses of data and video feeds, and virtual reality suites allowing drivers to control heavy equipment and diggers from miles away. Two scientific advisors were having a video conference with a third who sat shaking his head a few metres away from Peter.

'So what you're suggesting is a kind of "Tiberium Control Network"?' he asked disbelievingly.

'Basically, yes,' an older scientist with grizzled white hair on the conference screen replied.

'That's a completely impossible suggestion,' the scientist next to Peter rebutted. 'We've been struggling to contain Tiberium for the past sixty years, and it's been a certifiable disaster. We simply lack the expertise, knowledge, or the technology. Even if Kane were to turn up on our very doorstep and give us access to all of the information in the Tacitus, we would still be unable to…'

Peter walked past him and over to his office. The executives of the Anchorage Environmental Control Board all had offices arranged around the edges of the main control room. Placing his hand against the palm-reader on the door, he stepped into the small, carpeted room, and settled into his swivel chair. Stretching his fingers he pressed the enter key on the keyboard that sat on a plain metal desk, and the three darkened screens standing on metal frames behind the desk flickered to life, a small, blue rectangle appearing on the centre screen, and the words _Login Authentication Required_ flashing on underneath.

Peter tapped his password out and hit the enter key once more. The screen flashed again, and the box expanded to fill the whole screen, which lit up to display the eagle of the GDI logo. Peter glanced across at the stale cup of coffee that lay abandoned on the desk next to a pile of papers, and gritted his teeth for another day of mind-numbing bureaucracy.

* * *

><p>Reyjavik, Iceland, B-6<p>

Laina de Vries tucked an errant strand of auburn hair behind her ear and knocked on the wooden door.

'Come in,' a woman's voice grunted on the other side.

Laina pushed the door open and walked in. The office beyond the door was small and spartanly furnished, with simple metal chairs and a desk, decorated only by a small picture frame containing a photo of a tiny infant holding onto a fingertip the size of its hand.

Behind the desk sat a woman in dark blue military uniform, blonde hair tied into a functional ponytail. Her face was shallow but brooding, flat brow casting minute shadows across her hazel eyes.

General Kailey West was the Senior Commanding Officer of the Global Defence Initiative and together with General Whitley in orbit aboard the _Linden_ was responsible for GDI's forces worldwide.

'Ms de Vries, please take a seat,' she motioned to one of the chairs in front of her desk. 'Now, what can I do for you?'

'I'm here to help supervise the execution of an operation to root out a group of Nod infiltrators in the Internal Affairs Bureau in Stockholm.'

West's features slid into an expression of carefully controlled scepticism.

'Stockholm's a good distance away. Seems a strange reason to drop in to visit me if you got business is in B-5?'

'It was a stopover flight.' Laina replied, voice impossibly steady, almost unnaturally so.

The general's eyebrows slid slowly upwards, and she mouthed 'really?'

Laina shook her head slightly, before inclining her head towards the holographic console hovering above the desk. West nodded, tapped on the illusory keyboard, and the blue-tinted screen flickered out.

'We're clean,' she said tersely. 'Now, why are you really here?'

'It's General Granger, ma'am.' Laina began tentatively. 'I met with him recently; security summit; and he asked me to talk to you. He wishes to organise a meeting with you. He has various, ah… concerns, ma'am, regarding possible security breaches in certain operations that are currently being conducted by GDI high command.'

'Why didn't he just call me?'

'He believed that it would be best if his concerns were not broadcast on communications channels being monitored by… certain individuals.'

General West nodded, understanding mixed with apprehension etched on her usually unreadable face.

'Contact the General. Tell him I'll try to organise a meeting during the general conference next month.'

'Yes ma'am.'

'Is that all?'

A pause.

'Yes ma'am.'

'Very well.'

Laina stood up and left, the door swinging shut silently behind her.

A quick walk down several corridors of general's offices brought her through the silver-blue tinted foyer, receptionists and security guards snapping to attention behind their artistically curved desks as the Head of Internal Security sped past, picking up her black coat from a hook next to the door.

The executive building was a squat block of tinted glass and metal, surrounded by similar complexes containing the offices of the administration. The whole administrative compound was surrounded by a twelve foot high concrete wall and a barbed wire fence, with tall autogun emplacements, slender shafts supporting light machineguns and their targeting computers on platforms.

A gate guarded by a platoon of soldiers in full combat gear separated the compound from the rest of the complex, and Laina had thirty automatic rifles trained on her as her credentials were triple-checked. Two soldiers broke off from the platoon and followed her along the path towards the car park.

Beyond the administrative complex was a hubbub of motion, blocky tanks, armoured personnel carriers, transport trucks and squads of armed soldiers rolling through the alleyways between the rows and rows of barracks, blocks of factories, churning and smoking day and night, and communications towers, rising above the whole base, ringed by tiers of concrete walls and watchtowers, squat anti-armour cannons and anti-air Gatling guns.

One look at Iceland and you've seen the lot, thought Laina bitterly as she made her way to the official car waiting for her in the car park outside the main base. The majority of the island was covered by military bases, official buildings and apartments for the rich and powerful. Of course, it was the centre of GDI bureaucracy on Earth, so the paranoia that went into its defence was well warranted. Two command, two artillery, three armoured and four infantry divisions were permanently stationed in Iceland to ensure its security, a total of 11,000 full-time soldiers dedicated to the defence of the command hub, not to mention the (supposedly) impenetrable network of integrated, EVA coordinated defences and sensors which ringed the floating fortress.

'Ms de Vries!' shouted a voice from the other side of the car park. Laina inwardly groaned. What was it now? More meetings to be organised? Would it be that bad to get just half an hour to herself before dealing with the shitstorm brewing in Stockholm?

'Ms de Vries!' the man came to a halt just in front of her, out of breath from his sprint. Laina kept walking towards the car, her bodyguards standing a metre away, watching the man intently, hands resting on their automatic rifles.

'Hi,' the man began. He was in his thirties, dark hair windswept and tussled; face the weathered brown of one who's grown up in the yellow zones. 'I'm Ithiel Havanah. I'm a reporter for W3N, and I was wondering, if it's convenient with you, of course, if it would be possible to organise an interview. The people are concerned about the recent raids on Nod infiltration cells in B-5, see, and it would be helpful to have someone with… inside knowledge… to provide some facts on the issue.'

Laina closed her eyes and silently screamed. She knew what the reporter would be looking for; comforting words and reassuring figures that bore no resemblance to the truth. Since the Reform in the early 50s, when W3N was bought out by GDI, their job had changed from reporting the facts to reassuring the increasingly anxious populace, and it seemed that all people wanted from their leaders anymore was propaganda and spin.

'Well I'll see whether I can fit you in, but you're gonna have to check with my office.'

'Oh, of course,' Ithiel held out a tiny piece of card and slid it into Laina's hand. The bodyguards snapped their rifles up with metallic clicks, but Laina waved them away. 'I'll call you,' Ithiel winked and strode away. Laina stared in disbelief at his retreating back. Here she was, head of Internal Security, and she still couldn't get a little respect, a bit of reverence from anybody.

Of course, that was nothing new. Her whole life had been a quest to attain higher status so that people would hold her in some sort of admiration. As the daughter of General Granger, one of the heroes of TWIII, her appointment as Head of Internal Security a few years ago had been frowned upon by the top brass and bureaucracy as a nepotistic choice. Laina could never understand this opinion; especially given Granger's lack of influence in the corridors of power.

Following Director Boyle's dishonourable dismissal for the Liquid Tiberium Bomb debacle, Granger was briefly the Commander in Chief of the entire civilised world. However, in the power vacuum left by Boyle's demise, backroom political machinations soon whipped up a whirlwind in the chain of command, and when it subsided the old Minister of Defence found himself in the top job, a group of pen-pushing generals filled the military posts, and Granger found himself in a dead-end command role in Blue Zone 7: war-torn Washington D.C.

Striding uneasily over to the waiting car, Laina pondered where on earth she would find the time to go on air and reassure the sheep-like masses that they were in safe hands. Sliding into the back seat, she laid her head back, trying to relieve her mounting headache, before slipping a handheld tablet out of her pocket and opening up a secure connection to the GDI Global Command Network through the car's wireless.

* * *

><p>Glasgow, B-9<p>

'_Ecology and Conservation Spokesman Eric Whitford offered no confirmation on the matter, calling the Society's findings, quote; 'unsubstantiated guesswork and fear-mongering.' Meanwhile, Professor Renald of the Glasgow Environmental Institute has stuck to his claims that the increase in Tiberium incursions along the southern border settlements is not merely a seasonal anomaly, but in fact marks a worrying new trend in growth rates throughout the whole of Western Europe._

'_No official announcement has been made by the Institute regarding this claim, but it comes after another tense week in which Renald has had a number of public altercations with the Head of the Institute, Dr. Peter Macready. Macready has been a figure of some controversy lately for his decision to redirect the Institute's funding and focus away from away from stemming the spread of Tiberium, towards experimentation in the realm of deliberately initiated mutation. Macready responded to accusations of his work as 'defeatist and resource-wasting' by arguing that the scientific community 'hasn't considered a wide range of available alternatives in the fight for survival.' This hasn't stopped the comparisons to the environmentally disastrous and ethically questionable actions of notorious terrorist leader Kane by prominent community figures such as renowned war hero, General Michael McNeil,_

'_Now, onto weather with Daniel Morris, and Dan, it's been quite an unusual week, hasn't it?'_

'_Thanks Sarah, yes indeed, it has. We have strong winds blowing up through the Thames Gorge, with possible Ion Storm activity as far north as Lancaster. On Thursday the -'_

William MacDonnell closed the newsfeed with a tap of his finger, dropping the datapad, little more than a piece of clear plastic in a metal frame, onto the couch beside him, sighing and pinching the bridge of his prominent nose between his index finger and thumb.

Dropping the pad into his bag, MacDonnell slung the satchel across his shoulders and made his way to the door. As he stepped outside the somewhat dilapidated apartment, he picked up a sharp, metallic tang in the brisk, dry air. Looking towards the grey, cloudy sky, he could see a dark, ominous mass of clouds on the horizon, sharply lit by occasional flashes of bright light. Turning his head away from the boiling thunderheads, MacDonnell quickstepped it up the rough and broken street, hurrying to a brisk jog as he spotted a small group of men swathed in dark clothes reclining in a smashed shopfront, one of whom was fiddling with an old GD3 carbine. They turned to watch him as he jogged passed, faces hidden by their upturned collars and deep hoods.

As he approached the Glasgow Environmental Institute, a group of low-rise, glass fronted buildings surrounded by a series of chain-link fences, MacDonnell shook his head in disdain at the horde of men and women who had gathered outside the fence, dressed in a motley assortment of discoloured overalls and shirts, chanting and shouting at the small group of soldiers who stood stoically, arrayed around the boom gate checkpoint. _There must be nearly a hundred of them!_ he thought with alarm, panic seizing his guts. Heads turned to MacDonnell as he approached, and as the ripple of recognition went through them, the crowd surged like a wave, throwing themselves on him. Their shouts rang in his ears, some of them begging and pleading; some reasoning, but most were cries of condemnation.

'My child's dying, he's got runners in his lungs, he's coughing up blood, and you're not even trying to find a cure!'

'We're trying to survive out there and you're sitting here screwing around with your little chemistry sets!'

'My farm was attacked by shiners last month; you really think these freaks are worth saving?'

'You're a fucking monster!'

The accusations were battering him as strongly as the bodies that pressed around him. Arms and fists hammered Will's body, suffocating, crushing the breath out of him. A gloved hand suddenly appeared through the scrum, grasping for him, and MacDonnell clutched it, throwing off the arms that tried to seize his shirt, his limbs, his hair.

Gulping in air as he lay collapsed on the pavement, Will looked up into the eyes of a reserve soldier, dressed in a stripped down version of the standard GDI combat uniform, coloured in black and grey urban camouflage. He allowed the grinning man to haul him to his feet as his compatriots beat back the few protesters foolish enough to try vaulting the thick boom gate which had lowered into place behind Will and his rescuer. There was a sickening crack as one of the guards raised his rifle above his head and swung it into the face of a lanky, long-haired man who was running towards the gate. The man went reeling into the crowd, blood streaming from his shattered nose, and he was absorbed once more by the mass of angry people.

'Morning, William,' MacDonnell's rescuer said, jarringly cheerful with his broad Irish accent. The clash of accents was one of the strange things about living in Glasgow; refugees from all other parts of the British Isles had been making their way there for the last decade or so.

'Morning, Dylan,' replied MacDonnell breathlessly, as the guard scooped up the satchel that he'd dropped, rifling through the contents, checking the datapad for broken seams and secret compartments. 'All a matter of procedure,' he said, waving a hand. Satisfied, Dylan waved him through the inner gate, which rose to allow him through. Slinging his bag back over his shoulder, MacDonnell looked back at the mob outside the gates, still baying for blood, and shuddered.

The grounds of the Institute were much cleaner and well maintained than the streets outside. Narrow concrete paths led between rare clumps of trees and bushes; more bare trunks than leaves, grey and dead. The entrance to MacDonnell's building was up ahead; a solid metal door set in the middle of a polycrete wall. Swiping his security card on its lanyard across the scanner, the door hissed open, a blast of disinfectant-smelling air flowing out of the open doorway as he made his way inside.

After walking for minutes through a veritable maze of white, glaringly-lit corridors, MacDonnell found the room he was looking for. It was a sparsely furnished laboratory, with a series of benches spaced evenly throughout the room, with the obligatory collection of centrifuges, test-tubes, and translucent blue holographic displays floating in the air. There was only one person there, a middle-aged woman in a labcoat, her dark hair pulled up into a tight bun. She was examining a stoppered test-tube of thick, viscous green liquid secured in between two arms of an advanced molecular scanner. A complex readout of elemental concentrations and percentages was hanging in the air above the scanner, which the woman was staring at with some confusion.

She looked up suddenly as MacDonnell entered.

'Hey William,' she said, still distracted by the hologram.

'Hey Jill. What's up?

'Oh, nothing,' she said, waving her hand through the image to disperse it. 'Just getting some confusing readings from the molecular analysis I was running on this sample.' Jill Murphy was one of the best molecular biologists in B-9; in fact, she was one of the _only_ molecular biologists left in B-9. She indicated the test-tube. 'It's nothing major; I'll just run some more tests when I'm free this afternoon.'

'Okay then,' he replied. 'Have you seen Macready anywhere today?'

'Yeah, he's still down in The Pit with the rest of the team. Should be up around twelve.' Jill answered, still absorbed in the anomalous readings from the machine.

Nodding, Will walked over to one of several sealed doors at the far end of the rectangular room. A metal hatch was set in the front. Sliding it back, he peered through the plexiglass window into a poorly lit room, with a dark shape within, obscured by the greenish haze which filled the room.

'How's the subject doing?' Jill asked.

'I can't see a bloody thing,' he responded, squinting to see through the haze. 'I'll cycle the air; see if that won't do something.' He tapped on a keypad next to the door, and a loud whirring sound started up. After a few seconds, the green, smoky vapour parted, clearing somewhat, and revealing the creature that lay crouched in its depths. It was a thing of flailing, formless limbs, rippling flesh pulsing sickly to some internal rhythm, viscous fluids oozing from its pores. Patches of scarred-looking skin stretched across its heaving bulk in twisted patterns, glinting slightly, reflecting the paltry light from the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

'Shit,' MacDonnell breathed softly, turning away with a sigh.

'What is it?' Jill rushed over to the door, peering through the narrow slit, and expression of defeat sliding over her face as she looked at the quivering mass of flesh and fluids now thrashing in the Tiberium-depleted air, out of its ideal habitat. After several minutes, the floundering creature's movements slowed, becoming lethargic and pained, before finally ceasing with one last ripple of the tainted flesh.

'That's the fifth Visceroid we've got this week,' Jill exclaimed. 'All of the test subjects we brought in from the Border Zones haven't been able to take it. I'm surprised any of them have managed to survive in the wild this long. Too little exposure over too long a timeframe and they end up devolving before dying from Tiberium Toxaemia. Too much, and they just crystallise on us.'

'If we had the Tacitus…'

'We do. We've got whole databases full of decoded data –'

'You know what I mean. We can't even figure out what's keeping these mutations alive in the wild – how they can exist at all – let alone figure out how to replicate it. But they're alive and thriving. Just like Nod – what does Kane does know that makes him think he can keep his people alive in that hell-hole?'

'Pfff. Kane? Even if the bastard's still alive, he's no more powerful than any of the squabbling warlords in the border zones these days. Do you really think he's got a leg up on us, with all the resources GDI's throwing our way?'

'Do you really think that we know more than that genius of a madman does?'

The two scientist sat in a depressed silence for several minutes, before William piped up.

'That wanker was on the news again.'

'Renald?' Jill asked, surprised.

'Yeah. He's got everybody too damn scared – even W3N can't spin his statements into anything positive. I wouldn't mind if he was being constructive, actually trying to fix this whole debacle, but he's just giving the people fodder for their fear.'

'The Executive Board is listening to him, though.'

'Yeah, that's what I'm worried about.'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, what if Tiberium really _is _going through another rapid change? You've seen the evidence. What if it's not just a seasonal expansion in the growth figures? What if Renald's right?'

Jill contemplated this solemn declaration for a few seconds, before shaking her head dismissively.

'Come on, we're scientists; let's stick to the facts.' She patted his arm reassuringly.

'Yeah, you're probably right.' MacDonnell got to his feet, walking over to a wall-length hermetically sealed chamber where several hundred fluid samples sat glowing malignantly in their vials. In its chamber, the remains of the Visceroid bubbled, necrotic, mutated flesh devouring itself in a sickening parody of a life.

* * *

><p>B-7 Border Zone<p>

Zone Captain Peele unstrapped the heavy sonic blaster slung over his armoured shoulder. After a quick check of the power lines connection it to the heavy duty miniaturised fusion reactor on his back he took aim, sighting on a spindly, finger-like outcropping of eerily glowing green crystal that was protruding from an abandoned homestead. A twitch of his trigger finger and the air in front of him shimmered as intense sound waves were projected from the blocky weapon. The crystals shook, too, slivers falling off the main chunk, and in a few seconds the whole spear was reduced to a pile of gently sparkling dust on the ground.

Peele re-slung the blaster, and pulled out what could only be described as a sophisticated, high-tech vacuum cleaner. The two devices were attached to the bulky black fusion reactor on the back of his tan power armour suit, a hulking, reinforced-plaspex-fronted bubble with armour plating and almost comical arms and legs that stuck out like an afterthought.

'Two and three,' Peele called over the radio. 'Go through the homestead. Four, five and six, I want you to spread out and look for additional signs of Tiberium infection around the farm site.'

Despite what the GDI Public Relations Division claimed, the Blue Zone's weren't nearly as secure as the majority of the GDI populace had been led to believe. Outside of the grand cities the farmlands and relatively green (one way or another) hills were home to raiding parties of mutants, Nod separatists, and, of course, the ever present Tiberium that spread like a cancer throughout even these last bastions of humanity.

This was where it was plain to see that Tiberium was taking the Earth – not in the deserts, the Red Zones, the Tiberium wastelands, but in the Blue Zones – even in GDI's very backyard, they were fighting tooth and nail to keep their planet safe.

As one of the scouting pickets for the 19th Recon Division, units of whom were moving through the American Red Zone as a result of mobilisation orders from Blue Zone 7, their job was to move in behind the sniper teams and recons squads to clear out any Tiberium infestation they found, once any potential threats had been neutralised.

Peele gripped the handles of his cleaner and suctioned up the patches of infinitesimally small Tiberium dust that blew around the homestead, stopping it from spreading further and seeding new fields of the noxious substance.

Satisfied, Peele called over his radio 'Report, by numbers.'

'Two in. I've covered the upper storey of the homestead. There's no sign of infection. But, I have to say; whoever lived here was a sad, sad bugger.'

'Keep it clean, Devito,' Peele scolded him.

'Three in. I'm doing the lower storey now. There's nothing in here.'

'Four. Covered the fields. It appears they've been growing some sort of Tiberium mutated crops here. Looks like tobacco. Could be we've got drug runners here, maybe Noddie sympathisers.'

Peele digested this information, before sending four to collect samples of the mutated crop for analysis. 'Right, five, hit me.'

Static filled the airwaves.

With an ominous feeling, Peele called out again.

Still more static.

'Six, go and investigate five's last known position.'

There was static from six, too.

Peele breathed deeply, to stop himself from panicking, and began giving orders.

'Two, assist three downstairs, then pull back to my position. Be warned, six and five are out of contact, I suspect possible dangerous hostiles on site.'

'Affirmative,' called two.

'Three, make sure the bottom floor is clear of hostiles and then pull out with two.'

There was more static.

This simple recon operation was quickly running out of his control.

'Two, three is down, pull out, repeat, pull out! Four, retreat!'

All across the band, there was static. Peele unshouldered his sonic blaster and ran full pelt towards the door of the homestead, armoured shoulder lowered, and smashed it into splinters, yelling out for Devito to withdraw.

As he fell into the hallway, he caught a glimpse of three's dismembered power armour strewn across the corridor, and sticky red blood splattered gruesomely all over the walls, and Devito standing in the doorway to the cellar, firing away like a man possessed down the stairs. Suddenly Devito was thrown across the room by some unseen force, and Peele's vision filled with red.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Extract from "Tiberium Mutation – an Evolving Process"<strong>_

_**By Professor Steven Renald**_

_The acceleration in Tiberium growth is what's killing the newest mutations. The Forgotten generations of mutants and their direct descendants are from a time when the Tiberium mutation process was, dare I say it, friendlier to living organisms. The Divination experiments carried out by the Brotherhood of Nod's biologists only succeeded because at that stage in its evolution, Tiberium was adapting native organisms to help it propagate (see Dr Boudreau's breakdown of the 'Blossom Tree', pages 50-67 of the 2032 GDI Ecological Summit report). Once it had established a firm foothold, it had no need to continue creating these mutated organisms, and began a more aggressive phase of direct assimilation of matter in what it perceived as an attack on its developmental process. Yes, I speak as if Tiberium is a thinking, living entity. I'll return to this point later._

_The mutants of this current generation are few and far between, simply because their bodies can't adapt to the changing conditions in the Red Zones quickly enough. The descendants of the Forgotten have Tiberium in their veins from birth and so thrive in the increasingly toxic environments in the Red Zones. First generation mutations, however, are not yet well enough adapted to the deeper zones to survive there, but are too heavily mutated to survive in an environment that we find habitable…_

…_Tiberium's 'purpose' was a contentious point of discussion in the early 30s, which has now mostly been eschewed in scientific discourse due to the current assimilative process's seemingly uniform absorption of matter (in fact, the leeching process is now producing substances with much greater concentrations of minerals than the last stage of evolution) leading some to believe that Tiberium was 'designed' simply as a tool to extract elements in an easy-to-process form). The Visitors' preoccupation with harvesting the crystals and their use of the base-substances as building materials seems to support this hypothesis. However, the fact that Tiberium has shown marked reactive and adaptive abilities when faced with obstacles, suggestive it is alive in some sense, just as a biosphere of high enough intricacy can react to defend itself through cause and effect in a similar way to a living organism. This level of complexity is simply extraneous in a simple economic tool._

_It seems, now more than ever, that the previous hypotheses regarding 'terraforming agent' or 'harvesting tool', whilst explaining its _effects_, are too oversimplified to properly explain Tiberium's _purpose_, and I believe it would be obtuse to assume that it does not have a purpose, and that we are closer to discovering that purpose than ever before._


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

17th of May, 2058

New Mexico, R-15 Border-Zone

Red light filtered through the dark room, rivers of gentle illumination flowing around the shadowy shapes that loomed out of the murky gloom. Three crimson stained glass windows stretched from floor to ceiling around the circumference of the high-roofed hall, etched with symbols and iconography.

In the middle of the room sat a black wooden desk; simple, but solid and imposing, paperwork scattered over the scarred surface. Behind it sat a man, dark hair unruly and uncombed, brown face grey with stubble and lined with worry. He was dressed in a dark suit of coarse material cut off at the sleeves, under which he wore a silky grey shirt. A burgundy tie hung from his neck, barely tied, almost an afterthought. A black pen was clutched in fingers numb from hours of writing. A scribble on a sheet of paper to test it, and the useless pen was flung across the room, clattering in a corner somewhere in the darkness that permeated the chamber like a bad smell.

A knock sounded on the wooden door of the hall.

Gideon jerked upright, yanked the tie into a semi-straight position, and called 'Enter,' in a voice hoarse from hours of disuse.

The door (black, of course) creaked open gently, and a man in a considerably finer suit entered, footsteps echoing around the cavernous room. In one hand he held a black false-leather briefcase which was embossed with the chamfered triangle and scorpion tail emblem of the Brotherhood. He approached the desk and stood there expectantly. Gideon wiped the sleep from his eyes with one hand and gestured blearily to a seat in front of the desk with another. The man sat and placed the briefcase on the floor beside him.

'Prelate, welcome,' Gideon tried to sound as sincere as possible, but the mutual animosity was tangible. Prelate Kingsley inclined his head slightly.

'I'm here on important business -' Kingsley began, voice slick with superiority and self-confidence.

'I gathered,' Gideon interjected dryly.

'-so we'll have to make this short; there are other matters which require my attention in the region.'

'I wasn't aware Temple Command was running any operations in my region,' he narrowed his eyes at the Prelate, but the only response he received was a supercilious smirk.

Kingsley picked up the briefcase, and opened it, retrieving a thick bundle of papers, which he examined briefly before throwing onto the desk. Gideon picked it up gingerly, as if it were a bomb about to explode. He leafed through it idly, gazing at it more intently with every page he turned.

'Is this a joke?' Gideon asked incredulously.

'I'm deadly serious. The Inner Circle has decided that in response to the deficit in funds all regional commanders must pay an additional 15% tax. I'm sure you're aware that this is the word of the Brotherhood, and any disobedience must be met with severe consequences.'

'I… I… yeah, sure.' Gideon stuttered in disbelief.

'We have an understanding, then. Good.' Prelate Kingsley swept some of the papers back into the open briefcase, snapping it shut. 'I do hope you don't get any ideas. I wouldn't want to have to come back here.'

Gideon tried to put as much disgust and abhorrence into his stare as he could and directed it at Kingsley, hoping to burn the Prelate on the spot by sheer power of loathing. A slight smirk touched Kingsley's lips as he stood and strode away from the desk, letting the door creak shut behind him, lingering slightly as a reminder of the ego of the man who had passed through it.

Gideon put his head in his hands, waited till the insufferable Prelate's footsteps faded away and yelled, letting all of the detestation he had for the man and the whole bloody system that he represented out in one long, drawn out expression of hopelessness.

With quick shake of his head, Gideon plucked a spare pen from his pocket and began filling in the new paperwork that had been dumped on top of the already overflowing piles.

* * *

><p>18th of May, 2058<p>

American Outback, Border-Zone

Prelate Aaron Kingsley dropped his briefcase on the floor and slumped into his ornately carved antique chair. Fighting back a migraine, he pulled a silver case from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, plucked a fat cigar from it, lit up, and breathed in deeply. The Tiberium infused tobacco mixture flooded into his lungs, and after a moment his head cleared.

The office in which he sat was a small, oval space, with burnished metal walls. It was brightly lit, a change from most Brotherhood spaces, and a burgundy shag pile carpet lay on the floor. Various holy artefacts, stone statues, sacred scrolls and the like, sat in alcoves around the room. In the centre a curved, glossy black topped desk stood on thick pedestals.

Kingsley hit a button concealed under the desk, and a warm red glow grew over it as the holographic projector concealed within heated up. Glowing white lines flashed into being in the midst of the crimson fog that hung over the table, forming into a desktop screen that wrapped around the chair. Kingsley reached out into the air and tapped on an icon in the shape of a dollar sign. The icon flashed and a window opened up on the screen, displaying a database of names and figures.

+ East Coast Border-Zone (Temple Prime)

+ West Coast

+ New Mexico

+ Outback

+ South America

+ Brazil (Temple Prime)

+ North Coast

+ Amazon

+ Columbia

+ East Coast

+ Argentina 1

+ Argentina 2

+ Argentina 3

+ Argentina 4

Kingsley tapped the 'New Mexico' heading, and a dropdown menu appeared. He clicked on 'income', and a sheet of figures appeared in a separate window, displaying the income of Gideon's base's harvesting operations.

'Shit,' he chuckled as he examined the readings, and clicked open a similar screen, labelled 'expenses'. No wonder Gideon was loath to part with any more of his regional funds; there was barely anything left of them. The man had dedicated the majority of his income from the last half year to rebuilding the small villages that dotted the Tiberium Wastelands outside of GDI controlled territory, providing each population centre of over 2500 people with a refinery/power plant to help facilitate the running and rejuvenation of the area. Gideon, in his youthful foolishness, was having a fit of naivety, and was attempting to save each and every soul under his dominion, instead of stepping back and viewing the bigger picture.

Still, the boy had potential, if only he could be shaken from his extremist views.

A sudden harsh beep shook him from his thoughts.

'Kingsley! Get down here now.' A rough voice emanated from his desk's speakers.

Rubbing his eyes wearily, Kingsley took another puff of the cigar, before shutting down the holographic projector, pushing back his ornate chair and, with a sigh, making his way to the door.

Beyond the carved wooden door was a wide foyer area, with a dark, brushed metal floor and walls constructed entirely of red stained glass arranged into sharp, angular shapes. Corridors curved off in both directions, away from his office. Brotherhood officers stood sentinel on either side of the door, looking almost like man-sized insects in their black battle armour, with its sharp, chitinous edges and glittering red optics units in the helmet. Directly across from the office was another pair of doors; an elevator. Walking over to the open elevator, Kingsley stabbed at the button for basement 3, and the doors slid shut as the elevator carried him downwards, into the depths of the structure. His head span slightly, and his breath caught in his chest, though whether that was a result of changing air pressures or just his apprehension at what was waiting at the bottom of the shaft was uncertain.

The doors slid smoothly open, and Kingsley found himself in a similar foyer space to the one he had just left, albeit considerably worse lit. On either side of the elevator, corridors curved away into the gloom. In front of him, a set of large, ornate wooden doors sat ajar, and Kingsley could just glimpse a red glimmer coming through the gap.

Swallowing nervously and adjusting his tie, he pushed the doors open, and walked through, to find a long, rounded oblong table, surrounded by slightly simpler seats than the one that sat in Kingsley's office, many of which were empty. It was impossible to judge the size of the room, as the walls were swallowed up in gloom. A large display hung from the far wall, projecting several faces in split screen. To either side of the large display were floor to ceiling screens covered in the archaic and florid text of the Brotherhood.

Kingsley walked forward and took his place at the table.

Around the table and in similar rooms in the dwindling strongholds of the Brotherhood around the Earth were assembled the few remaining guardians of the disaffected and disillusioned populace that GDI had exploited and abused.

General Jacob Sweeney, wearing a crisp black shirt and jacket, emblazoned with the symbols of the Brotherhood and adorned with medals of honour and service to its cause. A wispy head of white hair was brushed away from his brow, exposing a jagged line of scar tissue that ran across it. Sweeney had served the Brotherhood faithfully ever since defecting from GDI in the reprieve between the First and Second Tiberium Wars. In recent years he had become somewhat of an inspirational figure for the younger generals, as a man of his age was hard to come by outside of the Blue Zones.

Swinging on his chair in at the corner of the table was a man whose past was shrouded in as much secrecy as Kane's. Dressed in an outdated GDI combat vest, stained a dark brown with some unidentified substance, and a set of standard issue slacks, the man known only as Reamer had arrived on the doorstep of the Temple in the American Outback (somehow avoiding the layers of deadly automated defences, good old fashioned death traps and crack squads of the best trained warriors in the Brotherhood) with fifteen information storage packs stuffed with data on GDI's most recent weapons and technology research and troop deployment orders, and, most importantly, the news that GDI's Ion Cannon network would be offline intermittently for another 7 months, as it was being upgraded with advanced targeting and energy storage systems. He had, of course, been locked up immediately.

Kingsley, who had been curate of the Outback Temple at the time and head of its Manifestation and Sanction Committee, remembered the deliberations of the Brotherhood's generals as they pondered over whether Reamer was a GDI defector who had brought the data as a genuine gift or if it was a ploy by the oppressors to gain their trust or trick them into doing something rash.

Their suspicions were only reinforced when a GDI patrol somehow located the temple deep in the border zone days later, but Reamer claimed innocence, and when General Sweeney ordered a wireless infiltration team to search the GDI battle net they found no clues about his identity.

Using the data, Sweeney ordered his subordinates to stage an ambush on a GDI patrol that would supposedly be passing through the border zone in a day's time. The raid was successful and Sweeney grudgingly admitted that Reamer was genuine, and he was released. Sweeney and General Aram began organising a coordinated offensive to remove GDI from the map altogether, but before they could finish planning and execute the operation, an army of cyborgs swarmed across the Asian Red Zone, taking out GDI settlements all through the hell-hole. The Asian arm of the Brotherhood took this as their signal to attack, and began their own, badly organised offensive, and the Americans were forced to follow suit.

In the 6 months following Reamer's arrival, he assisted the Brotherhood in neutralising and driving GDI from the border zone in North America, all the way back to its crumbling stronghold in Blue Zone 7. This move irreparably damaged the GDI foothold in North America, and gave the Brotherhood secure control of 57% of the viable land in the continent. However, before they could make the final push into Washington and cut out the cancer forever, GDI's revamped Ion Cannon network was brought online in response to the unexpected global offensive, and the Brotherhood was forced to slink away into the shadows or risk extinction.

These days, Reamer was still a complete enigma to Kingsley, but was a trusted adviser to General Aram, a Hispanic man dressed in a silky black suit and swathed in a fine cloak who sat at the head of the table. Aram cleared his throat and leaned across the table to address the assembled.

'Brothers,' he began solemnly, 'I bring disturbing news. Our spies in the oppressors' organisation have discovered a plan by their administration to infiltrate our order and sway our members to follow their corrupt and hypocritical ways.'

'Even as the world dies, they seek to undermine us and stop our work.' General Kai spoke disbelievingly from the screen. He was an Asian man with a slight figure and a crop of unruly dark hair over his vibrant green eyes.

A murmur of unease spread through the various members of the Inner Circle on the video screens.

'Truly, this is distressing information,' Kingsley leant across the table to address General Aram directly, 'but may I enquire as to how you came to possess it?'

General Sweeney turned to Kingsley with disdain in his eyes. 'Show some respect, Prelate,' he reprimanded in a voice rough from decades of barking orders into radios. 'This Brotherhood cannot possibly survive if we begin doubting each other. We will be doing GDI's work for them. I'm sorry, General, continue.' He nodded ingratiatingly to Aram, who inclined his head slightly.

'Thank you, brothers. This information has come to us thanks to the expertise of our Intelligence Acquisition Division. Curate Leis, if you would.'

A slight man, with tightly cropped blonde-hair, wearing a full-length black survival bodysuit sat almost at the very edge of the circle of illumination. Only the slightest of features – a sharp, narrow nose and thin lips – were visible in the midst of the pools of shadow that obscured the rest of his face. He moved forward, and the red light illuminated his sharp-boned cheeks, flat brow and cold, grey eyes. Leis nodded curtly at Aram, before turning to address the other men that sat around the table.

'During one of our recent data raids on the GDI battlenet and associated mainframe we came across a communiqué between two codenamed GDI operatives, which made mention of an Operation: BANDIT, and revealed small elements of the scheme that General Aram has just described. Following up on this and several other leads we have been pursuing, our agents located one of the operatives, who was undercover in a refugee camp run by Commander Gideon of the New Mexico region. He divulged the remainder of the details at the conclusion of an eighteen hour dialogue with our resident Confessors.

'The plan, it appears, is as thus; to persuade one the senior officials of the Inner Circle in North America to defect and betray the Brotherhood by providing information to the enemy and sabotaging vital operations in the region. They hope to use this betrayal to alter the state of the current impasse.'

Leis fell silent, with a contemplative look in his otherwise emotionless eyes, before nodding ever so slightly, seemingly satisfied. Having concluded his report, the curate shifted his chair back a fraction, retreating into the shadows once more.

Immediately, General Sweeney leant across the table to talk directly to General Aram, exclaiming; 'But why should we fear? The faithful of the Brotherhood could never be swayed by anything that GDI could offer. We have no need for their resources, their decadent lifestyle, or their ideology.'

Kingsley coughed, and all eyes turned to him in an instant. He looked somewhat perturbed by the sudden attention. Clearing his throat agian, he spoke in a forcedly strong voice.

'Well, it's not that we should be worried by the enemy's plans, but it would be remiss of us to not be cautious. After all, members of the Brotherhood have been swayed by our opponent's deceitful ruses before.' His eyes, which had mostly been focused on an indefinable point in the distant gloom flickered for an instant towards the video screen, before returning to their previous position.

This involuntary motion was not missed by the shrewd eyes of the imposing man whose image was displayed in the far right corner of the video screen. His face had the weathered look of one who has seen much combat, and was topped by a patch of silver bristles. He was physically daunting, and impression only increased by the sizable suit of traditional Black Hand powered armour he wore.

'Do you mean to imply, Kingsley, that I would willingly betray the Brotherhood?' Marcion demanded in a affronted voice.

'Of course not,' Kingsley replied placatingly, but his eyes spoke volumes. 'I was merely advocating vigilance and caution on our part. The last thing the Brotherhood needs at this time is infighting.'

'Yes, it would be incredibly dangerous, wouldn't it, if we had members of our circle who didn't believe that the principles of self-sacrifice for the greater good applied to them, too, and were only interested in their own personal gain,' General Sweeney said in a perfectly neutral, but slightly stilted, voice, pointedly staring straight ahead of him.

Kingsley, shocked that the general had spoken so bluntly in the company of the most important members in the Brotherhood, looked at Aram beseechingly, but he seemed to be similarly engrossed by the obscured walls.

Composing himself, Kingsley sat rigidly and looked towards the screen, where an array of emotions were displayed upon the faces of the other members of the Inner Circle, ranging from mild amusement to scorn and dismay.

'Are we done here?' Prelate Jung, commander of the Fai Tung Sanctuary, a relatively safe region of what used to be Mongolia, spoke with disdain in his voice. 'It's just that I have other things to be doing today than listening to your petty arguments. A group of refugees were just rescued by one of our Recon companies after their village came under attack from a contingent of GDI Zone Raiders who suspected them of links to a zone running cartel in Zone-12. We need to find them accomodation and track down the raiders that are still on the loose within the outskirts of Fai Tung, so I'll hope you'll excuse my lack of patience for your trivial interpersonal issues.'

General Sweeney looked somewhat put out by this sudden outburst from Jung, but he nontheless sank into a somewhat more contrite position. Jung shook his head in disbelief. Seeking to smooth over the antagonistic mood that filled the air, Aram raised his hands in a gesture of placation.

'Brothers, let us not be waylaid by small misunderstandings. We must act together if we are to withstand the deceit and manipulations of our oppressors. Together we will stand, ready and awaiting the return of the Prophet.' A tight expression came over his face, as he proclaimed; 'In the name of Kane!'

'Kane lives!' General Kai, Prelate Jung, and High Confessor Marcion agreed in strong voices. Several other voices echoed, slightly behind, and a few seemed to have a slight coughing fit.

'... lives...' muttered Kingsley.

One by one, the faces on the screen blinked out, leaving squares of static, with a 'connection terminated' message over each. Once the last face had disappeared, the screen turned black, and an uncomfortable silence filled the room.

After a spell, Sweeney spoke once more, somewhat hesitantly.

'There is one small item still remaining, General. It appears that a force of Zone Raiders, that we believe to be a scout party attached to the 19th Recon Division, discovered a group of smugglers living and producing in the B-7 Border-Zone yesterday. This much we discerned through data-raids and intercepted comms transmissions by a Zone Captain Peele. However, a local Observation Base reported a colossal explosion from the site that decimated the division. Our scouts' analysis of the site suggests a Tiberium-fuelled explosion, but the size of this explosion was many orders of magnitude stronger than what could possibly be produced by the average smuggler's supplies.'

This revelation clearly disturbed General Aram. When he spoke, his voice was low and portentous.

'I suggest that you investigate further, General Sweeney. It is important that we discover what has occurred there.'

'I agree,' Jovar DuPont, the Resident General charged with Temple Defence, spoke up for the first time now. 'I have heard rumours of similar explosions amongst men on the deep patrols into the Zone. I have speculated that they may be caused by critical masses of Tiberium, similar to the Prophet's L-T Bomb.'

'That would be a most disturbing situation, indeed.' General Sweeney agreed. 'I shall arrange a taskforce to investigate the site of the explosion at once. There is a commander in the region, Gideon, in whose camp the GDI infiltrator was found out. I believe he'd be the ideal choice to lead this taskforce.'

'Thank you, General. This entire situation is a mixed blessing. Nearly an entire division of enemy troops has been destroyed, but now there is this potentially greater threat from our planet itself.'

Sweeney and DuPont shared a quick glance, inscrutable as ever, but Aram appeared to miss it. He continued to talk in his long-winded, florid manner.

'It is decided then. In these grave times, our Brotherhood must be stronger than ever if we are to stand against our oppressors. May the hand of Kane be upon you.' Aram nodded and stood, indicating that the meeting had concluded.

The other members of the Inner Circle stood at attention as he exited through the grand doors of the chamber, black cape flowing behind his broad figure like a shadow, Reamer at his side, unfathomable, face closed off. Once Aram had left the room, Leis nodded to DuPont and Sweeney, pointedly ignoring Kingsley, and strode out after the pair, followed quickly by Kingsley, who seemed in a hurry to get away from Sweeney.

DuPont sighed, ran a hand through his wavy, dark brown hair, throwing it into disarray, and dropped back into his chair, swinging his long legs up onto the table, combat boots caked in dried mud. Sweeney collapsed, his body seemingly unable to support itself anymore. Laying his head on the tabletop, he coughed heavily several times before sitting upright again.

'He's going to have to go.' The words were spoken without hesitation or uncertainty. They were strong and confident; a death sentence.

'There's no way the Brotherhood is going to stay intact with him in charge. Aram's pompous speeches and waiting around for... him to return are going to be the death of us.' Sweeney visibly shuddered upon mentioning the word 'him'.

DuPont nodded his silent approval, deep in thought. Suddenly he spoke up; slowly, measuring each word as he said it.

'It'll have to look like an accident. We're already under enough suspicion from our Asian brothers, and Marcion, without offing our leader. How about these Tiberium explosions? Aram admitted himself that they're a danger to us, a growing risk of living on this planet. He could fall victim to one during a trip to one of the outlying bases.' DuPont posited.

Sweeney shook his head. 'It would be too hard to arrange, and there would be no way to ensure that we would even be allowed to take command by the Inner Circle after his death.' He paused for a moment, before snapping his fingers. 'If he were exposed as a traitor, the ones who provided the evidence to the rest of the council would be very well rewarded. After all, the whole council has now heard of the plot to corrupt one of our number. All we need to do is leak a damaging amount of information that only Aram could have access to, and watch as the accusations fly.'

'They'll still cry foul, even if we could prove that Aram was a traitor. They don't trust us for shit, and Kingsley… fucking Kingsley'd be on our cases before you could say 'snoop.''

'I hate to agree, but you're right.' Sweeney sighed.

'We need to bring in someone from outside the Inner Circle. Someone who the council won't be suspicious of. Someone devoted utterly to upholding the cause of the Brotherhood.'

'You crafty bastard.' Sweeney looked up, and the widening grin on DuPont's face grew wider still. He nodded slowly.

'Gideon?'

'Gideon.'

* * *

><p><em><strong>Extract from Dialogue Report and Transcript<strong>_

_**Date: 05/17/2058**_

_**Subject: GDI Informant Stephan Kepler **_

_**Resident Confessor: HC Liam Carstor**_

_CONFESSOR J. RAJEEK: I'm sure you've had enough by now, Stephan. This can be over in a moment, if you want it to. Just give us the word._

_PRISONER: Bullshit!_

_RAJEEK: I assure you, I'm being completely honest. There's no need for this stubbornness – nobody would think any worse of you for choosing to help the enemy if it's the right thing to do._

_PRISONER: You fucking Noddie scum!_

_RAJEEK: That's hardly an attitude conducive to an open and equal discourse. Now come, be reasonable. All we want is the name of the target. Your operation has already failed; if you help us now, we can help you. The Brotherhood's arms are open to all._

_PRISONER: You ain't gonna get nothin' outta me, you fucking fanatic freaks! I ain't gonna turn on my men. I've got morals, unlike you, you sadistic headcases! I hope you rot in hell, you and that cadaver you call a-[unintelligible]_

_RESIDENT: That's enough, Rajeek. [pause] Stephan, the Brotherhood cares very much about the fate of this planet and its people. The destabilisation of our order would have disastrous consequences for the hundreds of thousands who call this wasteland home, as well as for the balance of power in your little slices of paradise._

_PRISONER: We'd all be better off without you. You're the ones who fucked up this goddamn planet. I ain't gonna help you fuck us up even more._

_RESIDENT: So that's your final word? Nothing we can say to persuade you otherwise?_

_PRISONER: You're goddamn right it is!_

_RESIDENT: Very well. Rajeek?_

_RAJEEK: Yes sir._

_PRISONER: I'm a fucking infiltrator, you goddamn headcases. I ain't gonna crack. Just give up now for fu—[unintelligible]_


End file.
